How NOT to find a party

Ahhh, Collegetown. Cornell's capital of cerveza consumption. The landscaping is beautiful, if you're the kind of person who thinks landscaping should be done with a lawn of red Solo cups and a tasteful asortment of crushed beer cans.

Collegetown. It's peaceful about half the time. Peace and quiet in Collegetown are strongly correlated with time of day.

So when you've just finished your first final and have a few days until your next one, Collegetown is the perfect place to go to kick back, relax, and enjoy yourself with your friends, roommates, and that one skinny guy who keeps vomiting in the bushes. So early last Saturday evening, just past midnight, me and my friends decided to go down to Collegetown in hopes of finding a party.

It was, as usual, way more crowded than it ever was during the daytime. People filled the sidewalks, not really caring whether or not you had room to walk past them. Everyone's smoking. Let me tell you, it's not the drinking that's weird, but the smoking. Regular old cigarettes, not weed. At least alcohol gets you drunk, which can be kind of fun. Smoking just makes you smell bad.

Also, I don't know people who party. I know people who know people who party, though, and these are the people I rely upon to help me find said parties. Normally, this involves them texting their friends who party and asking where those friends are. This allows us to gather valuable information, such as 'at the football house' and 'some frat'. Surprisingly, drunk people don't really remember the street address of their locations too well.

So there we were, walking around Collegetown, looking for a party. There were a lot of girls dressed in Santa hats walking around in stiletto heels. One of the unique things about the Cornell Collegetown is the hills. Collegetown is located on a very steep hill, and it is extremely entertaining to watch drunk girls in five inch heels walking up and down the slope. I've yet to see a truly spectacular wipeout, but I have faith that sooner or later I'll witness the awesome spectacle that is maybe four or five sorority girls falling into each other, domino style, and tumbling over into someone's lawn.

My roommate Audrey assures me that's not sadistic at all, as long as I don't actually push them myself.

So we go and stand outside one house that's having a party. Turns out the friend of a friend who was there is now leaving. Onward to text other people! We walk down the hill, then up the hill, then past the shoe store, the pizza place, and the liquor shop. Guess which one is busiest? Actually, it's the pizza place, seeing as how everyone's too drunk to climb up the steps leading to the liquor shop. It's suggested that we try texting a boy someone knows, but that's vetoed after said girl says she hasn't talked to that boy since the time she made out with him while both of them were drunkenly leaning on me.

As we walk past Collegetown bagels, one of those delightful locations open from six thirty in the morning to two in the . . . next morning, we spot a bus heading back to North Campus, where the rest of the frats are.  We hop on. The bus driver's out taking a smoke, so I don't bother swiping my ID card.

The inside of the bus happens to be pink. Because why not?

While we're sitting on the bus, Audrey points out a guy she says she went to high school with. He looks like he's having a good time, so we all go back and talk to him and ask where he was. Apparently, it was a private party for the men's swim team. So we weren't invited.

Sans alcohol, we had no choice but to retire to my dorm room with a bag of Doritos, mozzarella sticks, and an individual pizza with pineapple, mushrooms, and garlic. And that's how NOT to find a party . . . but still manage to have fun.